Should SE scale high end content difficulty towards the usage of SIM ?

[Valence]

So you're saying that I cannot explain why 1) I do not like it and 2) consider it inherently artificial?
That i'm just making mating calls and I'm a scrub?

[BigCheez]

So you're saying that I cannot explain why 1) I do not like it and 2) consider it inherently artificial?
That i'm just making mating calls and I'm a scrub?

If you have to preface a statement with "so you're saying..." and paraphrasing it, you're probably making a strawman argument. Otherwise you could just reply directly to the point that was made.

But you didn't explain why you think ultimates requiring consistency was bad, you just said it "artificially" extends the amount of time required to prog the fights - implying that the design is inherently flawed. If you can explain why you don't like it, or why you think it's bad, then do that instead of slapping the word "artificial" on it and calling it a day.

A scrub is a player who blames their lack of success on the game or their opponent rather than their own lack of skill or poor decision making. You can decide for yourself whether you're a scrub or not. I wasn't directly calling you a scrub as much as saying that dismissing a source of difficulty as "artificial" instead of either getting good and overcoming it or deciding that the game isn't something that they want to play is scrub behaviour.

There are many forms of difficulty in game design. The player is expected to have or develop different skills to meet the needs to content. Asking players to meet a level of consistency to beat the content is entirely valid. Aside from ultimate, another good example of this would be any boss with a very high health pool in Souls or Monster Hunter. They force the player to correctly resolve mechanics and survive for a long time, i.e. the key to winning in these fights is consistency.

Personally, I wish there was a wider variety of content in FFXIV, with different forms of difficulty that ask different things of the players. But given the snapshot-based netcode and current game design whereby jobs and roles are easy enough for the absolute bottom of the playerbase barrel to play, there isn't much else they can do. The devs have designed themselves into a corner so to speak. They can't really leverage mechanical skill or reaction times because the game is too sluggish and they can't really leverage tight DPS or role checks because jobs and roles have been degraded so much that the only way to create a challenge here is by making things so tight that they're a crit variance dice roll.

[Valence]

If you have to preface a statement with "so you're saying..." and paraphrasing it, you're probably making a strawman argument. Otherwise you could just reply directly to the point that was made.

Isn't that a little rich coming from the one that was literally building one by making up groups of people that just throw the word aimlessly and "can't explain it"? And then acting entitled because I don't engage with your (frankly aggressive) reply? Instead of asking me why I thought it was artificial, you instead chose to make a direct ad hominem attack by associating me within this label, so please excuse me if I'm not indulging you there.

A scrub is a player who blames their lack of success on the game or their opponent rather than their own lack of skill or poor decision making. You can decide for yourself whether you're a scrub or not. I wasn't directly calling you a scrub as much as saying that dismissing a source of difficulty as "artificial" instead of either getting good and overcoming it or deciding that the game isn't something that they want to play is scrub behaviour.

Yes, you definitely weren't... I wonder why you brought it up then

At least have the honesty to stand by your words.

There are many forms of difficulty in game design. The player is expected to have or develop different skills to meet the needs to content. Asking players to meet a level of consistency to beat the content is entirely valid. Aside from ultimate, another good example of this would be any boss with a very high health pool in Souls or Monster Hunter. They force the player to correctly resolve mechanics and survive for a long time, i.e. the key to winning in these fights is consistency.

Yes that's definitely for consistency. And for content lifespan. And because it's part of the difficulty.

Doesn't mean I can't call it artificial. You don't like it when I do?

The reason it's artificial isn't because it enforces consistency. The reason it's artificial is because it enforces a gameplay where you spend 95% of your time trudging through 10+ minutes of fight just to be able to prog for 10s before the next wipe.

That's artificial. That's literally gameplay denial.

Personally, I wish there was a wider variety of content in FFXIV, with different forms of difficulty that ask different things of the players. But given the snapshot-based netcode and current game design whereby jobs and roles are easy enough for the absolute bottom of the playerbase barrel to play, there isn't much else they can do. The devs have designed themselves into a corner so to speak. They can't really leverage mechanical skill or reaction times because the game is too sluggish and they can't really leverage tight DPS or role checks because jobs and roles have been degraded so much that the only way to create a challenge here is by making things so tight that they're a crit variance dice roll.

Stop making excuses for them. They and the community brought it up upon themselves, and they can start working to correct the problem like any developer facing a problem should. That of course, would have higher chances to happen if they actually agreed that it is a problem, which their course of action seems to prove otherwise. They like their DDR long dances and they don't see a problem with it.

[BigCheez]

Isn't that a little rich coming from the one that was literally building one by making up groups of people that just throw the word aimlessly and "can't explain it"? And then acting entitled because I don't engage with your (frankly aggressive) reply? Instead of asking me why I thought it was artificial, you instead chose to make a direct ad hominem attack by associating me within this label, so please excuse me if I'm not indulging you there.



Yes, you definitely weren't... I wonder why you brought it up then

At least have the honesty to stand by your words.



Yes that's definitely for consistency. And for content lifespan. And because it's part of the difficulty.

Doesn't mean I can't call it artificial. You don't like it when I do?

The reason it's artificial isn't because it enforces consistency. The reason it's artificial is because it enforces a gameplay where you spend 95% of your time trudging through 10+ minutes of fight just to be able to prog for 10s before the next wipe.

That's artificial. That's literally gameplay denial.



Stop making excuses for them. They and the community brought it up upon themselves, and they can start working to correct the problem like any developer facing a problem should. That of course, would have higher chances to happen if they actually agreed that it is a problem, which their course of action seems to prove otherwise. They like their DDR long dances and they don't see a problem with it.

If you don't want to be lumped in with scrubs then don't parrot their mantra.

If you want to understand why I can't stand the term "artificial difficulty", do me a favour and Google the term yourself. You'll get a mile long list of 100 different people citing 100 different criteria for what constitutes "artificial difficulty". And a lot of them will directly contradict each other. The term serves no purpose other than allowing people to convince themselves that they aren't bad, the game is bad, whatever the problem might be. If the game is bad then play a different game.

You could make a fair point for something like corpse runs (which don't exist in XIV) being gameplay denial but reaching your prog point again is gameplay. If it wasn't gameplay, it wouldn't require consistency.

I'm not making excuses for SE. I'm trying to explain that this is not a fight design issue but a symptom of the slow and steady degradation of every other facet of the game. If you want to complain about something, complain about the aggressive over-streamlining of jobs and role responsibilities, because that's the root cause. That's the reason that SE has to put all of their eggs in the fight design basket.

At the core, I think we actually agree, but you're trying to treat the symptoms rather than the disease.

[Valence]

If you don't want to be lumped in with scrubs then don't parrot their mantra.

If you don't want to be lumped with dickheads, then don't behave like one (I can play that game too).

I'm not making excuses for SE. I'm trying to explain that this is not a fight design issue but a symptom of the slow and steady degradation of every other facet of the game. If you want to complain about something, complain about the aggressive over-streamlining of jobs and role responsibilities, because that's the root cause. That's the reason that SE has to put all of their eggs in the fight design basket.

At the core, I think we actually agree, but you're trying to treat the symptoms rather than the disease.

Because you think I haven't made enough posts already about all of this....?

[BigCheez]

If you don't want to be lumped with dickheads, then don't behave like one (I can play that game too).

Because you think I haven't made enough posts already about all of this....?

You can be salty if you like but there isn't much point replying to my post if you aren't going to say anything of value.

The fight designers are doing an excellent job. The problem is the restrictions that other aspects of the game are forcing them to work under. The problem is absolutely not that difficult fights require players to build consistency.

[Valence]

You can be salty if you like but there isn't much point replying to my post if you aren't going to say anything of value.

You literally replied to me by being unnecessarily aggressive, calling me a scrub that's just using excuses to justify how I suck at the game, made strawmen, ad hominems, just because I used the word "artificial difficulty", and now you play all coy and patronizing because you're being called out for it? What did I ever do to you? Did that word tilt you that much? You know you could have just explained your point rationally and perhaps I could even have come to agree with a "fair enough" or "point taken"?

What's wrong with you?

[ExiaKuromonji]

The fight designers are doing an excellent job. The problem is the restrictions that other aspects of the game are forcing them to work under. The problem is absolutely not that difficult fights require players to build consistency.

The problems with restrictions doesn't only come from the game's netcode or engine. There's also restrictions placed on the devs by players who complained about certain mechanics because of various reasons. It's why everything is just "place AoE here" or "spread/stack" in different formations.

We used to have very creative and unorthodox fight design in Alexander. While some of those things were kinda whack (A2S gobwalker thing for instance), but a lot of other stuff was just complained about because "muh uptime". It's no wonder we just have spreads and stacks in the game now when every time they try something different the parse brains shit on them for it. Players were complaining about the fights then, so SE fixed it, and players are still complaining. It got way worse in EW when tanks were just an easier DPS role that kitchen sinked or invulned every buster. And I hear healer wasn't much better.

I do agree they have kind of put themselves into a corner with the design. But I think there's more than just the general game design at fault.